Missouri sailor helps rescue Illinois teen at sea

Sunday

Dec 23, 2007 at 12:01 AMDec 23, 2007 at 11:23 PM

The U.S. Navy's 11 aircraft carriers are designed to defend against America's enemies, but one carrier found itself on a mission of mercy in the Pacific Ocean last week, and a former Carthage, Mo., resident was there to see it.

John Hacker

The U.S. Navy's 11 aircraft carriers are designed to defend against America's enemies, but one carrier found itself on a mission of mercy in the Pacific Ocean last week, and a former Carthage, Mo., resident was there to see it.

E5 Daniel Roberts, of San Diego, Calif., serves on the 100,000-ton USS Ronald Reagan, the newest aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy.

Roberts' mother, Feathers Graywolf, his stepdad, Billy Graywolf, and other members of Roberts' family live in Carthage.

Feathers Graywolf said her husband was watching the Military Channel on television when he heard about the rescue of a 14-year-old girl, who had come down with appendicitis while on a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico, by the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan.

"I was in Ohio, I drive an 18-wheeler for Leggett and Platt, when he called and told me about the rescue," Feathers Graywolf said. "I said 'I know that ship, I know those guys.' We were just out there last Veterans' Day and took a tour of the ship with our son and we went on the family cruise. Daniel gave us a private tour and showed us the surgical area. He said it had four bays, the crew has three surgeons and he hoped he never had to use them."

The unusual rescue took place on Dec. 15, when the captain of the cruise ship Dawn Princess called the U.S. Coast Guard saying it had a medical emergency on board and could not reach a port quickly enough to deal with it.

According to the USS Ronald Reagan's Web site, the girl, from Albion, Ill., was experiencing abdominal pains on the cruise ship.

"We were informed that we had received a distress call from a cruise ship that a minor that had a medical emergency that they couldn't deal and they didn't have the facilities or the capabilities to get her to a qualified medical facility in time, so we were ceasing our operations to transit into Mexican waters to engage in rescue operations for this young lady," Roberts told the Carthage Press in a telephone interview.

"That's what we did, we ran all night. We cruised all the way down to Cabo San Lucas. They announced over the PA that we had to secure our belongings because we were going to flank speed. I've never heard that announcement before. We were scooting."

According to the carrier's Web site, the Reagan sailed over 300 miles that night, then launched a helicopter to pick up the patient while the ship was still about 175 miles away.

"I've got some friends down in medical and they had gotten word that her appendix had actually ruptured, so they actually did the fastest drop and grab I've ever seen," Roberts said. "They flew over and hovered over the cruise ship and dropped a corpsman and a litter down, put her in it, hoisted them both back up and off they went. We had to conclude our operations before we could come home, so she got stuck riding with us."

Roberts said the ship ended up staying out at sea a day longer than originally scheduled in order to complete her original missions, but the crew didn't mind the delay.

"That's our mission, to help anybody and anyone who needs it," Roberts said. "When we were on our way to the Persian Gulf earlier this year, we conducted a rescue mission for someone who was having a heart attack on a fishing trawler. If they get a call and we're the closest, we go. Unless we're in actual combat, we'll drop whatever we're doing and go help somebody, that's what we do."

Roberts is one of more than 6,000 crewmembers on the USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that weighs in at a little more than 100,000 tons fully loaded, is 1,092 feet long and carries more than 70 aircraft and helicopters.

Roberts serves with VFA-115, a strike-fighter squadron based at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California. He has a wife, Denise, and a 3-year-old daughter, Samantha.
Roberts has been in the Navy for six years and spent a year of that service at sea, almost all of that on the Ronald Reagan.

Roberts said he would leave later in 2008 to join a Marine ground unit in Iraq.
Feathers Graywolf, said she's proud of all her children, but Daniel Roberts is a hero in her eyes.

"When I heard about the rescue, I called him," Graywolf said. "I left a message on his phone and said 'I understand you're a hero and not in the way it usually happens.' I told him to call me because I wanted to hear first hand what had happened. I had no more left the message than I got a call from him asking me what I wanted to know."

Graywolf said she and others in her family visited Roberts over Veterans' Day and got to ride on the Reagan on a family day-cruise.

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